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Terence Tao on the suspension of UCLA grants

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Re: Terence Tao on the suspension of UCLA grants

#101

Post by FirmwareBurner »

A_D_E_P_T wrote: post #79
numbers_guy wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is nowhere to run and hide. Europe is worse than the US on this front. China also demands party loyalty. In a sense this is just the human condition. The ruling faction demands loyalty. Only a very advanced human civilization could move past that and allow criticism of the ruling class. Maybe the US had achieved that for a brief movement in the past or maybe it was just an illusion. EDIT: For people wondering w…

I'm in Europe. It's not even close to being worse than the US on that front. Places like the Fraunhofer Institute and the Max Planck Institute are perpetually well-funded, and are largely unaffected by politics. Good places to do research.

>Fraunhofer Institute and the Max Planck Institute are perpetually well-funded, and are largely unaffected by politics

Oh, so I can freely go up against the German government's policies and have my career in academia unaffected and keep my government funding?

I lived in Germany and don't remember people or organisations ever being able to break government rules with no consequences (unless they had high friends in politics).

Something smells here.

Re: Terence Tao on the suspension of UCLA grants

#102

Post by roenxi »

blackbear_ wrote: post #77
roenxi wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US BLS does seem to have a bit of a history [0] with their job reporting though. The process they've been using appears biased to over report initially and then get revised down over time. I'm sure there are a lot of political considerations, but from a raw statistical perspective there is a pretty easy path to getting better results. They could eliminate the optimistic bias and aim for accuracy. If it were me I'…

The "history" you cite only goes back three years. Meanwhile, the BLS publishes the monthly corrections since 1979, and the average correction since 2003 is +9k between first and third estimates [1]. Moreover, do note that all published numbers come with standard errors [2] and 90% confidence intervals, which did include the corrections of -133k and -120k that were made for May and June. The current interval for July…

McEntarfer [0] had only been commissioner for around 18 months. The performance of the BLS in 1979 probably isn't reflective of her skills and talents.

And I'm not going to bother digging through the manuals to figure out how the BLS is calculating their standard errors, but there is a pretty decent chance they've been calculated assuming that the error mean is 0 when in fact it appears to be biased.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erika_McEntarfer

Re: Terence Tao on the suspension of UCLA grants

#103

Post by kashunstva »

mikevm wrote: post #39

The only people to blame for this are the Universities who are blatantly violating civil rights law -- even after a Supreme Court ruling! Terence and other academics who have had nothing to do with promotion of this blatant discrimination should be angry at their University leadership and administrators for this outcome, not the Trump administration who is doing THE RIGHT THING. The faculty should take this opportuni…

> blatantly violating civil rights law

That’s not at all clear. Regardless, there is no proportionality in the actions that this administration is taking against UCLA and other eminent universities. The tools for righting civil rights issues in education should be through consent decrees that permit the DOJ to set criteria and monitor for compliance. The destruction of a large part of the research enterprise for these claims, particularly when the claims are widely regarded as nonsense, is heavy-handed and gives the distinct impression of another agenda.

Re: Terence Tao on the suspension of UCLA grants

#104

Post by davrosthedalek »

defrost wrote: post #96
davrosthedalek wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To add some more anec-data: I have a couple of Jewish colleagues. Several of them received death threats. This is not acceptable.

I agree that is unacceptable, however it's unclear whether your colleagues received death threats for supporting Palestine or supporting Israel.

From what I know, some received the death threats because they were Jewish, some because they supported Israel. One of them had the photos of the missing hostages up on the door. They were torn down repeatedly.

Re: Terence Tao on the suspension of UCLA grants

#105

Post by defrost »

andrepd wrote: post #97
defrost wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maximize crony capitalism and oligarchy, perhaps. The US drifted far from any form of pure open market laissez-faire capitalism or balanced regulated capitalism some time past.

Yes, your "pure" capitalism tends to do that. Kinda similar to the people who say of the SU "but it was not true communism".

The people that founded the SU openly declared that it wasn't communism, just a managed phase on the way to actual communism (that never happened).

Either way, we're talking here about small in groups treating a larger out group as sheep to be manipulated and harvested.

Re: Terence Tao on the suspension of UCLA grants

#106

Post by roenxi »

hcknwscommenter wrote: post #65
roenxi wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US BLS does seem to have a bit of a history [0] with their job reporting though. The process they've been using appears biased to over report initially and then get revised down over time. I'm sure there are a lot of political considerations, but from a raw statistical perspective there is a pretty easy path to getting better results. They could eliminate the optimistic bias and aim for accuracy. If it were me I'…

The source you cite is written by a man with literally zero training in economics or econometrics. He lost his job in 911 and started a blog in the GFC that gained an audience ( https://mishtalk.com/economics/uk-high-school-student-asks-m... ). Good for him. You assert with absolutely no basis in fact or any supporting citation that "there is a pretty easy path to getting better results." The BLS is run by the world'…

> The BLS is run by the world's experts in how to measure what they are measuring.

And the commissioner was just sacked and the reason given was because she was incompetent. Goes to show the risks of being in a high performing environment and not having a trivially demonstrable track record of high performance. If a dude with no particular track record can clearly articulate why the numbers are biased then your employment might fall into question.

Re: Terence Tao on the suspension of UCLA grants

#107

Post by hcknwscommenter »

bsaul wrote: post #63
kzrdude wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then it's maybe not a free country anymore if you have to think about how your actions are perceived by the president in power at every step.

i agree with you, but i think it's been the case in the US for the past 15 years already. The only difference is trump pushing toward different issues than biden.

False equivalence nonsense. If you can't see the difference between Trump's authoritarian actions and the Biden presidency, you are blinded by your own personal biases.

Re: Terence Tao on the suspension of UCLA grants

#108

Post by jltsiren »

fxtentacle wrote: post #76

3 months ago, we were all wondering why the EU proudly launched their "Choose EU for Science" campaign, despite having much lower funding levels than in the US. If they predicted this, then their actions would make a lot of sense. It is notoriously difficult for scientists to change careers after years in research. For people cut off from US funding like this, a EU-guaranteed middle-class income will appear much more…

As a fraction of GDP, the EU spends more on academic research than the US. And if you add the UK, the total is also higher in absolute terms. (The US spends more on R&D, but that's mostly business spending.)

From an individual perspective, the funding situation is (used to be?) better in the US than in Europe. Mostly because there is less competition, as the salary gap between the academia and the industry is wider in the US. Americans are less likely to do a PhD and pursue a career in the academia than Europeans.

Re: Terence Tao on the suspension of UCLA grants

#109

Post by hcknwscommenter »

ekianjo wrote: post #32
kzrdude wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then it's maybe not a free country anymore if you have to think about how your actions are perceived by the president in power at every step.

I hate to state the obvious but if your livelihood depends on federal grants then by all means you need to take in account the fact that oresidents can change after a few years.

That was never true in the past. This is new.

Re: Terence Tao on the suspension of UCLA grants

#110

Post by davrosthedalek »

FirmwareBurner wrote: post #101
A_D_E_P_T wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm in Europe. It's not even close to being worse than the US on that front. Places like the Fraunhofer Institute and the Max Planck Institute are perpetually well-funded, and are largely unaffected by politics. Good places to do research.

>Fraunhofer Institute and the Max Planck Institute are perpetually well-funded, and are largely unaffected by politics Oh, so I can freely go up against the German government's policies and have my career in academia unaffected and keep my government funding? I lived in Germany and don't remember people or organisations ever being able to break government rules with no consequences (unless they had high friends in po…

As long as you are not a "Beamte", i.e. a special case of state employee, yes.
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